‘Smaller buy-ins, Bigger prizes’ – that’s music to the ears of any poker fan, and we’re rolling out the whole orchestra at 32Red this month because there’ll be more reduced buy-ins and increased prize pools than you can shake a virtual stick at.

In fact, every day between March 20th and March 26th you’ll be able to take advantage of these player-friendly tweaks in five multi-table tournaments. Who cares what the nutritionists say? At 32Red you’ll be guaranteed a week’s worth of your ‘5 a day’ essentials…

Of course, in this case, instead of having to nibble on an apple and trying to do something interesting with a turnip, your 5-a-day is made up of fun-filled tournaments. And eating fruit and vegetables doesn’t come with a chance of winning money. Numbers-wise, we’re talking slashing buy-ins by over 40% and bumping the prize pools up by more than €20,000during the course of the promotional period!

Finally, to top the week off, March 26th will see a special edition of the Sunday Showdown, with the buy-in lowered to €135 (from €215) and the prize fund increased from €25,000 to €32,000!

Dublin, Ireland’s vibrant, friendly capital, has given us the likes of Oscar Wilde, U2 and even the phrase ‘chancing your arm’ (apt words, indeed, for poker fans).

The city will play host (2-6 September) to the MPN Poker Tour, where the Main Event of what promises to be a fun, exciting poker festival will have a guaranteed prize fund of €250,000. We’ve been running satellites to suit all pockets and players at 32Red Poker, and at 7pm UK time, Sunday 2 August we will be holding the MPNPT Dublin 20 Packages Gtd special tournament which, as the name suggests, will have 20 €1,500 Dublin packages to win!

The satellite process being what it is, you can qualify for qualifiers, with buy-ins to kick off your MPN quest starting at a mere 25c. Meanwhile, at 8pm on Saturday 1 August, our Saturday Surprise Special has a buy-in of €5 and offers a €1,500 Dublin package for the winner and €190+10 satellite tickets (for use in Sunday’s 20 Packages tournament) to the other players at the final table!

Following our feature about cutting a path through freeroll (and general) multi-table tournaments, here are a few reminders about how we might – should we survive that far – handle the final table.

Obviously, as the tournament progresses, what will have started as a patient approach during which we concentrated on good hands and position will have gradually stepped up in pace (along with growing blinds and a decrease in players), so that we were willing to get involved with a wider ranger of hands, and not necessarily limiting our aggression to late position.

Ideally we also made a point of exploiting other players’ fear of missing out on the paid places as the bubble approached, while at the same time avoiding big, unnecessary confrontations against anyone who could knock us out of the tournament.

The problem for inexperienced players (indeed most players) who find themselves sitting at a final table is having to readjust to the dynamics and come up with a new strategy to cope with the changed situation. One mistake – unless we have a stack so tiny that the only option is to take our chance rather than passively give in by being blinded away – is that, guaranteed a decent prize but behind six or seven players on what is left of the leaderboard, we almost immediately throw caution to the wind and gamble in an effort to have one of the bigger stacks. Every final table sees this happen, usually with this player exiting with a far from strong hand when, in fact, it would have been possible to sit tight for a while and wait for genuinely favourable opportunities, only pushing all-in if it becomes absolutely necessary. Moreover, with other players – even those above us – gambling away their survival, it is not unusual to be promoted from 8th/10 to 6th or 7th/9 within an orbit or two of the final table getting under way – patience, even at this stage, remains a key part of the game.

Often such an elimination will be thanks to someone with a huge stack taking it upon themselves to go head-to-head with gambling short(er) stacks, sometimes with random, mediocre hands. It’s important – for now, at least – to forget about runaway chip leaders rather than have a go with, say, KJ after seeing them risk a few thousand of their enormous stack with 89 – unless circumstances dictate it, there’s no point being around a 60-40 favourite (KcJs v 8h9h is roughly a 60:40 match-up) if we’re healthy enough to pick our spots.

Nevertheless, as usual, we need some kind of happy medium, ideal situations being when we get involved with premium hands while someone is trying to steal, a player goes with a lesser hand or someone has reached (what they perceive to be) a critical, desperate stage.

It is imperative to keep in mind our position relative to the other players in terms of where the different size stacks are. This makes certain players safer/riskier than others, which we should factor in to the decision making process.

Throw in the occasional steals against passive players – which are easier to make if we have started the final table patiently and thus earned ourselves a solid, not-to-be-messed-with image – and it becomes much easier to pick our way through the minefield while others self-destruct around us.

By employing a patient, solid (not passive) and ultimately aggressive strategy we should be able to remain in contention until there are a handful of players and, consequently, win a bigger prize than had we initially lacked discipline. If we do manage this and find ourselves lagging so far behind the rest then, far better now to take our chances all-in and finish 5th, for example, than do the same with all ten players still in the game.

Join us every evening at 9pm (UK time) as we hunt for a precious Royal Flush of diamonds!

Be the first player to make a diamond Royal Flush and claim the Diamond Royale (DR) progressive jackpot. Our DR tournaments are played on the classic game of no-limitTexas Hold’em and offer 1500 starting chips with 10 minute blind levels. Each game is guaranteed at €150 and costs a tiny €6 + €1 to enter. While all buyins go towards the game’s prize pool, all tournament fees go towards the DR jackpot which we’ve started off at €500…

Our €750,000 Guaranteed Tournament is a 2-day event and runs on a quarterly basis throughout the year, at 6pm (UK time). The tournament is played on the popular game of no-limit Texas Hold’em and offers 10,000 starting chips, 20 minute blind levels, 30 seconds response time and a 120-second time bank for those all important decisions! You can buy in directly to the tournament for €300 + €20 but there are plenty of cheap qualifying tournaments available throughout the month. The game is a ‘Freezeout’ which means that re-buys are not allowed, however late-registrations are allowed during the first two hours.